Happy’s Essential Skills: Roadmapping Essentials

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

This is usually driven (in a technology roadmap) by evaluating the relative business value and the technical complexity, plotting the results in a quadrant graph of some kind. It is critical here that the stakeholders are engaged in the collection of the data points and they are keenly aware of what they are scoring. At the end of the day, what we are doing here is identifying what is feasible and what has the highest business value. I know, I know—this sounds obvious, but you would be astonished by how frequently this does not occur.

Approaches vary, but a common model employs the notion of product generations with features projected by extrapolating recent market trends. An alternative approach relies on a visionary or idealistic future scenario created through a brainstorming process.

4b. Discover the optimum sequence.

The fourth stage enumerates barriers to reaching the goals and targets defined in stage two by characterizing the technical (and infrastructure) gaps and hurdles impeding progress. Remarkably, this often proves the most difficult of all stages because of the high level of uncertainty and wide range of strongly held opinions. At this point the technology drivers and their targets are specified and the technology alternatives that can satisfy those targets should be specified. For each of the alternatives a timeline should be estimated for how it will mature with respect to the technology driver targets.

 The time factor can be adapted or made suitable for the particular situation. The time horizons for e-commerce and software-related sectors are usually short. Other distinctions can be made on scale and intervals.

5. Develop the Roadmap

Finally, concrete plans addressing each gap form the fifth stage. This usually translates into a list of research and development priorities. Technical strategies and timetables represent the consensus of the planners. Do not underestimate this task. After all the hard work put into an exercise like this, the last thing we need to do is to confuse our stakeholders with mind-numbing detail. Yes, we need this for ourselves to exhaust any possibility that we have missed something. And to ensure we haven’t overlooked the obvious—not sure who said this but, “when something is obvious, it may be obviously wrong.”  

Because the alternatives may differ in costs, timeline, etc., a selection has to be made of the alternatives. These will be the alternatives to be pursued. In this step a lot of trade-offs have to be made between different alternatives for different targets: for example, performance over costs and even target over target. The technology roadmap report consists of five parts:

1. The identification and description of each technology area
2. Critical factors in the roadmap
3. Unaddressed areas
4. Implementation recommendations
5. Technical recommendations
   

Phase 3: Follow-up activity phase

This is the moment when the roadmap must be critiqued, validated and hopefully accepted by the group that will be involved in any implementation. For this, a plan needs to be developed using the technology roadmap. Next, there must be a periodical review and update point, because the needs from the participants and the technologies are evolving.

Roadmapping Risks

As with any powerful tool, the potential for misuse, or even abuse, leads to abundant dangers and can render a technology roadmap useless, or worse. Risks exist at all stages of roadmapping. The rest of this paper analyses key roadmapping risks with techniques to identify and mitigate each risk.

Expert Bias

Expert opinions and market data form the foundation from which the roadmaps emerge. Obviously, bias on the part of experts or inaccurate input data results in a weak foundation. Not surprisingly, the experts who participate in roadmapping incorporate their personal and professional biases into the process. These experts, rightly, champion projects and positions they believe in, often with explicit employer support. When properly balanced by alternative points of view, this type of bias facilitates the advance of new ideas. On the other hand, if a particular camp represents disproportionate or especially persuasive representation, the group may overlook viable alternative perspectives.

One strategy to limit undue influence of expert bias relies on open and explicit disclosure of each participant’s business and career interests. In addition, roadmap organizers must continually monitor the balance among various initiatives, causes, and stakeholders represented within the group, adding participants as needed to insure each point of view has a voice.

Misleading Market Data

Recognition of genuine trends requires the perspective of time and distance. Confusion between short-lived fads and sustained trends often obfuscate reality. For example: the iPad, real trend or passing fashion? Time will tell. Time did tell! Because the iPad was not predicted in the mobile phone roadmap, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and RIM were not working on such a product and found themselves woefully behind when it was clear that the iPad was not a fad. However, roadmapping requires interpretation of contemporary market activity in terms of sustained trends. A badly skewed roadmap results when market hype supersedes real trends.

To guard against such uncertainty, the roadmap must explicitly acknowledge the uncertainty of market forecasts. One helpful approach employs future scenario planning in which the team describes alternative, possible futures. Recognizing that each future scenario represents a real potential outcome can add balance and limit the impact of transient market patterns on the roadmap.

Unforeseen Innovations

While bonafide market trends provide reasonable predictions of future development, they cannot predict breakthroughs and/or revolutionary innovations. Just as driving down the highway while watching only the rearview mirror increases risk of a collision, blind reliance on recent market trends results in a roadmap that may suddenly become outdated (and irrelevant). Future scenario planning also mitigates the impact of the unforeseen innovation. While no collection of alternative future scenarios can predict a breakthrough, explicit inclusion of forecast uncertainty results in a more robust roadmap better able to encompass unforeseen developments.

Inappropriate Aspirations

Appropriate aspirations, in response to the second essential roadmapping question (where do we want to be?), create the motivational and empowering focus of the roadmap. Overly conservative or overly ambitious aspirations sap the life out of a roadmap and demotivate the participants. Moreover, some aspirations appear so utopian or naive that they become totally unrealistic.

If left unchecked, inappropriate aspirations render the roadmap a worthless waste of time. Conversely, a good set of aspirations promotes great outcomes as President John Kennedy did in 1961 when he established the goal to send a man to the moon and back by the end of the decade. Assess proposed aspirations by getting a feel for their ability to motivate and excite. No excitement means more work to do. Too much excitement likely means either naiveté or unrealistic expectations.

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

The mechanistic approach implied by Figure 4 ignores the inevitable uncertainty in forecasting. We don’t know what we don’t know, so how can we correctly identify the barriers between today’s situation and tomorrow’s aspirations? Which paths lead to dead-ends and which paths enable products not yet imagined? The authors agree with Carl von Clausewitz: “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” The benefit of planning, fortunately, lies not in accuracy, but in the insight and understanding gained through the process.